Hello to you all !

Hello Everybody, It has been many years since I have been on a prospecting site. I keep to myself mostly these days. Though I am here now to learn about dry-blowing.
I hope someone can help me or explain some information to me as I am not yet familiar with the process. I have purchased an old machine to use on my lease.
The set-up or timing of the machine is no doubt critical to getting good results. I look forward to your advice (if any).

Oddfellow.

Oddfellow, You're far from odd if you're taking up dryblowing, a very satisfying hobby.
Over the years gone bye I posted a lot of info on here re: dryblowing and using a recirculating sluice.
Will have a dig and see if I can find them.

OF, Either I'm not searching correctly or all the old posts have been removed?
Maybe Kon can dig up something on dryblowing/

Found one post;

https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t745-dry-blowers-for-gold-recovery

G'day oddfellow, welcome to the forum.

Also try searching in/under the "Equipment & Accessories section", "dry blowers old or new", (on page 4 of 7)

Cheers gents,

Thank you very much, I have had a read of the forum comments you pointed to.
I think I should post a picture or two with the dry blower in question.
Don't wish to sound rude but it is not a week-end type of machine ( well it could be I guess)
Now to work out how to add picture.

Oddfellow

https://i.servimg.com/u/f53/20/14/94/65/20190910.jpg

Oddfellow

welcome mate nice toy

Thank you mate, I have so many questions about running this thing. I hope someone here has had experience with this size of blower.
I have run it to check everything works (It Does) Air ratio and feed over the 6 riffle beds is a major question in my mind.
6 beds, adjustable feed rate, blower fan (not bellows) 4cyld diesel, hydraulic drive components. Dirty job to be expected (still a shock though)
It was unwanted by previous owner so got it at a reasonable cheap price. I know nothing about it at all but need to learn some basics quickly.
Any help would be appreciated. The flow rate over the beds is my major concern because it looks to me that it would be easy to allow too much material
over the screens and not liberate the fine gold?

Oddfellow

welcome oddfellow,looks like something out of chitty chitty bang bang,love to see it running


cheers moredeep

Way out of my league OF, would have enjoyed owning one of those in my earlier years.
Ray Attard or Tony Pilkington would be able to help you. Don't know their identity on here.

indeed would love to see it in action mate where will its resting place be (not wanting details of ya lease or anything) shame its well out of my league also this does make me want a small show of my own someday

Mike54, thank you for putting the picture in the discussion.
Yes , it does look like something from chitty chitty bang bang hahah. I may have to name it accordingly?
If possible at a later date I will put something up showing it running and hopefully producing some gold.
It lives and works in North Qld Joe82. It just sits at the moment waiting for life to start after the Xmas break.
Depending on weather conditions I will fire it up in Feb. For now just trying to learn more about it.
I searched you tube and seen something similar posted by Ray-one-day, was a short video in WA.
That did not help a great deal but it was a start.

Oddfellow

Hi oddfellow,

There are a few things to do before worrying about the feed rate and the airspeed etc.
First off is classification. If you are feeding mixed particle sizes into the beast at the same time, you will have fine gold hiding/getting caught with larger particles and going through to the waste pile.
Does the system have a trommel in it? How many stages of classification are there? What is the material that you are going to feed it with?

Answers to the above will then get you to where the feed rate and airflow can quickly be determined by trial and error.

The common way to do this testing is using lead shot. Count what you put in the test parcel and see what arrives in the concentrates at the end. If you can get your hands on some tungsten carbide debris, that is closer in SG to gold and will be even better. Again though size is important. If you are looking for fine gold testing with larger material will not prove the result. Testing is never ending.
Also can you vary the individual trays air flows and feed? If so you can use one tray as the benchmark and play with others to see which gives the best result. Document everything and when you think you have it all sorted, test it again. You only get one shot at doing it "right"
as the cost of redoing the piles will be uneconomic.

Please note that I haven't used a big system like that. All my playing has been with small single tray systems. However I have been around a few larger machines which are always described by their operators as "the best in the goldfields" . Sadly a quick pan of the tailings usually knocks that claim on the head. I have many years ago been around sorting sytems that use fluid bed technology. Things like grain sorters/driers and sand sorters/driers. They are the same principle whereby vibration and air is used to get solid material to behave like fluids. If you can achieve that with dry classified material, gravity will do the rest for you.

As Nightjar said Tony P is the goto man at the moment. His system is completely variable in terms of speed, airflow and vibration for each tray. He is presently at the testing stages which will be ongoing for a while yet.

Good luck and in case I forgot to mention it, You need to do a lot of classifying and testing, before you start production runs.

Hello Dozer, all good information in your post and the questions also very good. I will try and answer what I can !
Classification, two grizzly screens on the hopper first screen allows 2 inch and smaller through, the second screen allows half inch material into the hopper / feed bin.
Both grizzly screens are on a vibrating cam / system. Oversize is out the side then detected again. The reason I say detected again is because I push with a dozer and detect the ground.
I remove approx 6 inches each time I re-push with the dozer. I push the material into heaps and I continue this process until the gold stops or I am no longer getting nuggets.
The heaps I have pushed up have been checked by a friend and he also panned some of the material in the heaps.
He politely called me a doodle head and asked why was I leaving so much gold behind? His opinion is that I am leaving at least 4grams a ton behind in small and fine gold.
He is not the type of man to talk rubbish so I went out and got the dry blower.
I have and prefer to use a wet plant but where I am I do not have any water at all.
Don't wish to sound silly here but over the last couple of years I have been happy enough just picking up the nuggets! (no shortage of them)
I do however agree with my old mate that it is silly leaving so much color behind!
The problem is that I am mostly a one man band.
Back to the dry blower, so I now have this machine and I want to run the dirt or heaps I have through it.
If I do attempt to classify the material down further (which makes sense by the way) there goes more time and more re-handling of the dirt.
My mind is telling me to at least bulk through what I do have? (remember I am a team of one)

There is no trommel in the dry blower system.
Led shot great idea, I will do that.
All trays are fed by a feeder bar on a single cam. I can adjust the feed rate but not for individual trays.
It is the same for air flow all trays are fed by one collection box and each tray has a short 5 inch tube to it. 6trays in total.
The trays do have an a ganged vibrating system connected to them.
Your description of a fluid bed absolutely makes sense to me everything moving and vibrating and the gravity doing it's thing is so right. Many thanks for that visual.
Thank you for taking the time to answer me Dozer, sorry to give a long winded answer just thought others may be interested in how my push and detect method
is implemented on a lease.
I don't know if this new added method will help me or distract me. Time will tell but I think it is worth a go.

Oddfellow

Hi Dozer and everybody, if you can give Tony P a heads- up about this subject I would be happy to hear anything he has to add.
Anyone also interested in answering don't be shy I am here to learn more about the subject of dry blowing.

Oddfellow